Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday April 08, 2011 @06:17PM
from the convergent-technology dept.

Eurogamer has done an extensive evaluation of Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play device, a smartphone that's also a dedicated gaming platform complete with controller-style buttons. Here's some of what they had to say:
"On the subject of internal parts, gadget fiends are certain to feel aggrieved by the lack of a dual-core processor. Although the Xperia Play's 1GHz CPU performs admirably in general tasks, it lacks the future-proofing of a more advanced chip. ... The negativity quickly dissipates once you slide open those glorious PlayStation-style controls, however. Although we've seen gaming interfaces on mobiles before (on the N-Gage and the under-appreciated Sagem MyG-5), they pale into insignificance next to what's presented here. ... One aspect of the Xperia Play's gaming portfolio that so far hasn't been bellowed from the rooftops by Sony Ericsson's PR is emulation. Such reluctance is perfectly understandable, given the shady nature of ROM-sharing and the like. ... However, the fact remains that retro gaming emulators are freely available on the Android Market, and they open up an entire world of gaming brilliance."

However, the fact remains that retro gaming emulators are freely available on the Android Market, and they open up an entire world of gaming brilliance

It being a Sony device however, one wonders how long it will be until they refuse to allow any firmware updates to this devices that don't explicitly lock out "undesired" apps...or just silently reports that you're using them so they can send their army of attack lawyers after you =)

That's not true. Emulation isn't illegal and the DMCA didn't change that. ROMs themselves are a bit greyer in terms of legality, the last court decision making personal on that being a really long time ago and during a time when getting replacement carts was a lot easier. ROM private ownership [wikipedia.org]

In general, Sony has an absolutely awful record with controllers... The (in)famous Sony "dpad of pain"... the awkward analogue stick placement on the dualshock and descendents.... the crappy PSP nub... the cramped and awkward PSPgo controls... ugh. Sony has many strengths, but designing gaming controls isn't one of them.

A quick look at the article isn't very reassuring: The "Xperia Play" has (1) the dpad-of-pain, and (2) some awkwardly-placed "touch sensitive disks" with no tactile feedback...

As much as I hate MS, the fact is that I've never had a more comfortable controller than the ones they sell for the Xbox 360. (No, I don't own an Xbox, some PC games are borderline unplayable without it)

The controller that they include with the PS3 is really, really bad. It's made for little kids and they've refused to offer a controller designed for adults. I get that there's a cultural thing about face in Japan, but ruining products with this sort of lack of attention to detail is ridiculous.

The controller that they include with the PS3 is really, really bad. It's made for little kids and they've refused to offer a controller designed for adults. I get that there's a cultural thing about face in Japan, but ruining products with this sort of lack of attention to detail is ridiculous.

No idea what you mean by "made for little kids," but I think you're quite off the mark about "Japan": in most cases Japanese companies are insanely customer-focused, and very detail oriented, and go to great lengths to please the customer, even if it means swallowing their pride; they pay a lot of attention to customer reaction.

However, Sony -- or maybe more properly, SCE -- does indeed seem to have a bit of a stubborn streak. Some of that is probably rooted in the tendency of Japanese firms to tinker en

What I mean is that the controller is tiny. It doesn't fit my hands at all. I can sort of get that they made that the default, but refusing to release one that's reasonably ergonomic for adults was puzzling. Nintendo likewise released a balance board for the Wii which is tiny, granted I've got a big butt, but I'm hardly over weight. It might be fine in Japan, I'm not sure how they size up in the posterior department to us in the US. Japanese companies might be more focused on the customers local to them, bu

They want to make one controller and that controller has to be small for Japanese and children. Microsoft made a big Xbox controller for a while but sales were soft so that experiment is over for now, they didn't replicate it for the 360. That's too bad for me because I have gigantic hands, but the 360 controller is marginally acceptable.

The design for the Sega d-pad that they used for the Genesis 6-button pad and the japanese Saturn controller. That was by far the best d-pad I've ever used.(Yes, better than the Nintendo d-pad which is no slouch.) Actually come to think of it Sega for some reason that would only make sense to them dumped that pad when they made the Dreamcast. (I don't know how many times I wished Sega would have just made an adapter so I could use my Saturn analog controller with my DC.)

No it's not, it's made for normal sized people not the 6 foot 2 inches tall 300 pound, hungry man eating, goatteed, overgrown "dudebros" who only play shooters and sports games that seem to be the Xbox's biggest fans.

In comparison to the shorter pasty japanophile RPG fanboys who like their PS3's and PSP's.

All sarcasm (applied to both groups) aside. I like the dual shock, it's just the right size for me, the Xbox controllers ( and the DC controllerthat it's essentially evolved from) are too big and unconfor

But the problem is not every big guy owns an x-box (and ever since the S-Controller was made default that's shipped with smaller controllers too). There are 3rd party controllers for most every console, but the quality can be dubious...

In general, Sony has an absolutely awful record with controllers... The (in)famous Sony "dpad of pain"... the awkward analogue stick placement on the dualshock and descendents.... the crappy PSP nub... the cramped and awkward PSPgo controls... ugh. Sony has many strengths, but designing gaming controls isn't one of them.

I dont know what the gripe is with Sony controllers.

I am a bit of an odd case though, because paralysis has forced me to adapt my playing habits to suit my ability. I learned to play videogames with the NES and SNES when I was younger, and as far as im concerned Sony has stuck closest to that control layout. I place the controller on my lap turned like this. [tinypic.com] My index, middle and ring fingers manage face buttons. My ring and pinky fingers manage shoulder triggers and my thumb manages the d-pad and left a

Sony already had the psx emulator removed from the app store. "Emulation" like we have seen in past years is going to become more difficult. The games that are being emulated are now being sold for a few bucks each. This is easy money that rights-holders will be defending so I am sorry this is not a positive thing for emulation in general. You will have to pay Sony 5 bucks for crash bandicoot on your phone even if you already owned the game for the original PSX. WIth an emulator you could rip your libr

Yes, psx4droid was removed, but it's freely available (with source) from his website [zodttd.com]. And it was probably removed because of the name psx4droid. FPse [android.com]is still available in the android market.

the company making this phone is Sony-Ericsson, a joint venture between Sony and Ericsson. This is *not* Sony. Sony may have some influence in the venture, but does not have final say on how the company is run. (Thank your preferred deity for that!) As a matter of fact, if you payed any attention to mobile/telecom news the current head of S-E, Bert Nordberg, came on board from Ericsson about a year ago to replace the previous head who was from Sony! If anything, I think there will be more chance that the ca

1 ) I don't care about geohot just for the simple fact that anybody that has a grain of intellectually honesty knows that the whole Linux excuse has zero things to do with those hacks. For once he was already at it before there where even talks about removing linux on the PS3. The removal of otheros was because he was using it as a way to break in the console. Linux on the PS3 was a dog to begin with, so I have a hard time imaging there are a lot of people that cared about it. Linux is getting abused by pe

YOU are WAY off the mark about Linux being merely an excuse. That PS3 is MINE, it is not for Sony to decide what I can and cannot do with hardware I own, period. I dont care about Geohot as much as I care about the extremely dangerous ground Sony is treading on. 1st amendment > Sony.